For eleven months, my mother lived in a dirty cell in an immigrant detention center in Texas. She’d never hurt a soul, and in fact risked her life and safety to protect her family, but she was held like a prisoner.

Help me shut down the detention center that mistreated and retaliated against my mother and other asylum-seekers. Sign if you want the Don T Hutto Detention Center shut down for good.

Many of the women being held in the center are seeking asylum from unthinkable violence in their home countries. My mother made the treacherous journey north to escape a violent gang and an abusive ex-husband who had tried to kill her multiple times. Another time, my mother missed an important immigration appointment to save my life, driving through the night to get us away from my husband, who had threatened to kill me.

Almost all of the women detained in Hutto have similar horror stories, but instead of being offered shelter in the U.S. they are being held in a facility that is not equipped to humanely house anyone. It’s time to shut down Hutto.

The Hutto Detention Center used to hold migrant children, but the conditions of the facility were so inhumane that intense public pressure forced it to close down. Children in the facility were forced to wear prison clothing, couldn’t have toys in their cells and were disciplined for acting like any other child – running, or talking too loudly. Now that the facility has reopened to detain women asylum-seekers, residents still have very limited medical care, no privacy and terrible food. There have been multiple allegations of sexual abuse and assault of women detainees at the hands of detention guards.

After months living in Hutto, my mother and hundreds of women couldn’t take it anymore and launched a hunger strike to protest the poor conditions at the facility. For their actions they faced retaliation: many people were sent to solitary confinement or transferred to other detention centers.

But she’s not giving up, and neither am I. Sign to stand with us and demand that the Department of Homeland Security shut down the Don T Hutto Detention Center.